Technisat Skystar S2

[Przemek211]

I had a problem with SS S2 on BDA driver. It didn't work with few DVB-S2 tp, but was downloading EPG, the sound was instantaneous cheep, and similar.

I have been solved this problem by install WDM driver from Skystar 2: Click

After few days problem was come back (i didn't do anything. in beautiful morning i started up my HTPC and transponders wasn't works). I reinstall system yesterday with WDM driver and now i have this problem too.

We can think that this problem is only problem of drivers. But.. on DVBDream all is good with DVB-S2 tp.

I like much more DVBV. Please help me.

I will add few screens which will better than my 'crazy english'

Edited September 15, 2009 by Przemek211

[Przemek211]

I'm sick, so i'm adding screens today:

channel TVP1 from 10862, DVB-S2 19,2W (maybe you can't check it - spot beam for Poland; normally ~3Mbit/s) http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7748/asdur.jpg (Cyberlink/arcsoft codec)

channel TVP1 on CoreAVC: http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/3854/asd2ls.jpg

channel TVP HD (same tp.) - normally ~8Mbit/s, CoreAVC codec http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/7668/asd1wj.jpg

channel ArteHD (other DVB-S2 transponder - no problems): http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/2712/asd3x.jpg

This problem is only on 10862 from Astra and few transponders from HB. On DVBDream - all is good.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Przemek211

[Tjod]

May be a codec problem.

[Przemek211]

Please.. I have this problem from March. Believe me: it's no codec problem

[Andrey123456]

Go to View->Filters->DVBsource an make screenshots from there. Try to change video renderer.

 

May be the problem caused by card malfunction. I am making very serious test of Skystar S2 after I finish I will post results here.

[Przemek211]

No problem DVB-S2 tp:

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/5646/arteu.jpg (ArteHD)

Problematic 10862 DVB-S2 transponder:

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/1830/tvp1.jpg (TVP1)

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/5163/tvphd.jpg (TVPHD)

[Tjod]

10862 H Astra 19° is using a spot beam. So you can receive it only in or near Poland.

[Przemek211]

(maybe you can't check it - spot beam for Poland)

And i wrote - on DvbDream - all is good

[Przemek211]

Sorry for double post (i think that short edit mode isn't good idea), but i solved my problem.

What was? In hardware options we must NOT use: open whole transponder

[Andrey123456]

I had similar problem few days ago. It seems to me I got this card working properly. Explanations are coming soon...

Edited September 20, 2009 by Andrey123456

[Andrey123456]

Open whole transponder (TechniSat SkyStar2 and FireDTV devices only): If this checkbox is ticked, the hardware resp. driver delivers all streams that are broadcasted on a transponder. In this case TransEdit filters the streams out that are required for scanning or the Preview function. If this option is unticked, the hardware or driver does the filtering .In general it is recommendable to leave „Open whole transponder“ unticked for TechniSat cards, because it's their default mode, and ticked for FireDTV devices, since the FireDTV firmware and driver does not handle the hardware filtering flawlessly yet.

 

Hardware PID filtering can be useful for receiving transponders with a very high data rate exceeding the hardware's maximum transfer rate, thus causing loss of data. DVB devices with BDA driver usually deliver the whole transponder, without a possibilty to activate hardware PID filtering. The TS Analyzer automatically activates the „whole transponder“ mode, if necessary, because it needs the unfiltered streams for a complete analysis.

 

New Skystar S2 has inherited an old Skystar2 bug. Probably developers of DVB card even did'nt put effort to fix it. With BDA driver and option Open Whole Transponder enabled I had discontinuity every 10-15 minutes on DVB-S 27500 symbol rate. With WDM drivers discontinuities related to DVB card disapear. There is a version that installing addition cooling on DVB Card fixes the problem. I would say helps to bypass. It is so called "Skystar Carlson Edition" which has propeller on its back, home made by hardware enthusiasts. I checked temperature of all chips it is not more than 55-60 degrees. Even if they used the worst commercial chips there, 70 degrees is a limit. Frequency of data flow? It is nothing for PCI bus. The most belivable reason their microcode and\or driver force chipset to work on the edge of absolute maximum values. I know very good how changing 2 lines of VHDL code easyly removes temperature related problems. Developers must know exactly what is causing the problem. For us it wil buried forever behind the secrets of B2C2. I think they do not want to fix it for marketing reason, or the company has a lot of problematic ASICs in stock and want to sell them anyway.

[Derrick]

With BDA driver and option Open Whole Transponder enabled I had discontinuity every 10-15 minutes on DVB-S 27500 symbol rate. With WDM drivers discontinuities related to DVB card disapear.

..there might be a difference in behaviour relating to the different drivers but imho you card has no hardware_pid_filtering option

[Griga]

With BDA driver and option Open Whole Transponder enabled I had discontinuity every 10-15 minutes on DVB-S 27500 symbol rate

"Open whole transponder" does not apply to the BDA driver. DVBViewer ignores this setting, because there is no known TechniSat BDA extension for setting up HW PID filters.

[Andrey123456]

There is no open information how the card works, I can only guess. And of course you know hardware software interface better than me

 

What can make such a difference (discontinuities) if I change BDA driver to WDM? And how driver difference is related to standby mode?(see my last post in recording service)

 

After 2 weeks of experiments I got from this card everything I wanted (stanby - conditionally), but the subject is still interesting for me.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Andrey123456

[Andrey123456]

imho you card has no hardware_pid_filtering option

In BDA mode there is no pid filtering. What about WDM mode with unchecked Open whole transponder?

May be this is the difference? Corect me if I am not right.

[Griga]

I've just installed a SkyStar S2 with network (WDM) driver... no problems up to now. HW PID filtering on/off works (proved by a PID dump). More results later...

[Andrey123456]

My test environment was following: Universal twin LNB connected through 2 DiseqC switches to HTPC and Desktop. One of computers had TT-S2-3200, another SS-S2. during the test DVB cards were switched between computers. With SS-S2 and BDA driver (I didn't know yet a trick how to bypass standby bug in WDM mode) number of discontinuities was much higher and on TT-S2-3200 was almost all the time is equal to 0. No matter in which computer SS-S2 is installed. I tried to make better ground connection between chassis and tuner shield (like metallized sponge in TT-S2-3200). It didn't obviously help, but I noticed that first 30 minutes after power up I don't have discontinuity. After that I checked temperature of chips and found it for sure less than 70 degrees. I did not upgrade to "Carlson Edition", because it is not the right way. Then I replaced driver twith WDM. Disabled open whole transponder. Number of discontinuities was exacly the same on both cards, around 2 in 12 hours. Signal strength was 38-54%. Not bad for the weakest transponder. I also changed PCI latency, interrupts assignment - no influence at all.

 

After this test I came to conclusion that SS-S2 has a problem. At least in BDA mode.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Andrey123456

[GrafKoks]

Hi,

 

how many MBit/s on this transponder?

 

If it is a DVB-S transponder you can use this formula:

 

((SR*2*188)/204)*FEC

 

If it is more than 42.5 MBit/s brutto you have to use the NDIS driver

[Przemek211]

After 2 weeks of experiments I got from this card everything I wanted (stanby - conditionally)

How you solved problem with no working after wake up? I can do this only by restart from device manager.

Now i have other problems.

I see now that picture on h.264 channels probably hasn't a lot of frames, because in bustling scenes picture is 'jumping'. I tried CoreAVC, Cyberlink, Arcsoft. I off on arcsoft deinterlacing, but still this problem.

Next problem: after few changes of channels i must: rebuild graph, because video is no start (but in 'tray' of program i can see bitrate and other informations).

There problems weren't seen before reinstall.

Sorry, for my english.

[Andrey123456]

Hi,

 

how many MBit/s on this transponder?

 

If it is a DVB-S transponder you can use this formula:

 

((SR*2*188)/204)*FEC

 

If it is more than 42.5 MBit/s brutto you have to use the NDIS driver

 

test was done on

75E 12640V 22000 3/4 channel HTB-0h

[Andrey123456]

How you solved problem with no working after wake up? I can do this only by restart from device manager.

Now i have other problems.

I see now that picture on h.264 channels probably hasn't a lot of frames, because in bustling scenes picture is 'jumping'. I tried CoreAVC, Cyberlink, Arcsoft. I off on arcsoft deinterlacing, but still this problem.

Next problem: after few changes of channels i must: rebuild graph, because video is no start (but in 'tray' of program i can see bitrate and other informations).

There problems weren't seen before reinstall.

Sorry, for my english.

 

 

device manager->Technisat Network adapter->properties->Power Management->uncheck enable the computer to turn off device to save power. Plus install the latest version of recording servise. In hardware tab check reset after standby checkbox.

 

Works with GA-EP45UD3R motherboard. I was too lazy to install SS2 into HTPC to check it there. Anyway I disqualified this card for HTPC using. It does not let to go to stanby without closing DVBV before. TT-S2-3200 does. On both motherboards GA-EP45UD3R and GA-E7AUM-DS2H

Edited September 21, 2009 by Andrey123456

[Derrick]

..apparently this card provides hardware_pid_filtering cos it uses a flexcom chipset as well. So with the wdm driver it should work. I wonder if this architecture suffers from the same bandwidth bottleneck as the old SS2 when streaming the entire mux.

[Lars_MQ]

Yes it does.

[Andrey123456]

What is maximum bandwidth that Skystar S2 can provide? I mean stable operation without discontinuities.

 

according my test and the formula ((SR*2*188)/204)*FEC 22000 *2 * 188 /204 * 2/3 = 27032 not stable

[Derrick]

The limit of the flexcom on the SS2 is about 40-42mbps. Transponder with 38mbps (27500, 3/4) are ok.

[Lars_MQ]

The limit is 42 mbps.

[Andrey123456]

Do you mean old skystar 2 or new Skystar S2? For old card there are tested hardware solutions that can allow reception of 44500 SR transponders. Main idea was overclocking and additional cooling. There is no information yet about new card.

 

What about 16Mbits/s without hardware changes? I am talking about real numbers, proved by testing, not specification. By the way on technisat site there is no technical data except LNB current limit.

[Derrick]

The limit of the flexcom on the SS2 is about 40-42mbps.

 

..reception/locking of very high symbolrates will be limited by the design of the digital demodulator. 45mbaud can be received with the old SS2. I don't have the new DVB-S2 card and can't comment about its limits

[Lars_MQ]

My answer covers both cards.

[Andrey123456]

Does it mean that not stable work at 27Mbits/s is a reason for RMA?

[Derrick]

My answer covers both cards.

 

..not quite. You can't possibly know the limits of the demodulator for dvb-s and s2

 

 

Does it mean that not stable work at 27Mbits/s is a reason for RMA?

 

what??

[Andrey123456]

QUOTE (Andrey123456 @ Sep 21 2009, 22:04)

Does it mean that not stable work at 27Mbits/s is a reason for RMA?

 

what??

 

I thought if the limit is 42000, my card does not work stable at 27000 why not? Or fail-safe limit is less than 42000 ?

[Andrey123456]

some interesting information about another tuner based on the same chipset as Skystar S2

 

Look at operating temperature range. It can explain why people made "Carlson Edition"

 

http://www.comtech-tw.com.tw/pdf/dvbs2-24120.pdf

Edited September 21, 2009 by Andrey123456

[Griga]

Here are some results from the TransEdit Analyzer. It always switches "Open whole Transponder" on (even if it's switched off in the settings), provided the DVB device provides such an interface.

 

First of all, a (limited) work-around for the bandwidth bottleneck is the null packet filter. Please read more about it here (at the end of the chapter). DVBViewer always activates this filter for SkyStar2 / S2 cards with WDM driver. TransEdit provides a tweak for switching it off (see manual). I've run the following tests with deactivated null packet filter.

 

All transponders on Astra 19° East could be received *without* a continuously increasing number of "missing packets" resp. discontinuities, e.g.

 

11362 H (ARD, ZDFvision, DVB-S2, SR 22000, FEC 2/3, data rate 42,5 mbps)

11953 H (ZDFvision, DVB-S, SR 27500, FEC 3/4, data rate 38 mbps)

 

except

 

11914 H (SKY HD, DVB-S2, SR 27500, FEC 9/10, data rate 49.2 mbps).

 

Here I got lots of discontinuities with the SkyStar S2 (data rate measured with my Hauppauge Nova S2, that is able to receive this transponder without dropping data). Activating the null packet filter didn't help, because the null packet percentage is quite low on this transponder (3 %).

 

Other things that I've observed:

 

Sometimes after switching over to a different transponder I got an increasing number of discontinuities for about two seconds in the TransEdit Analyzer. Then the stream got stable. Dunno why it happens - it's not reproducible. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. No pattern recognizable.

 

Similar in DVBViewer GE (where "Open whole transponder" is switched off = HW PID filtering switched on): Sometimes switching over to a channel on a different transponder initially causes two or three discontinuities. Maybe due to DiSEqC, because after setting DiSEqC to "None" it doesn't seem to happen anymore. The SkyStar 2 is known to "interrupt" other cards when sending DiSEqC commands, and the SkyStar S2 even seems to disturb itself.

 

No desaster, but not good. Decoders or other components that can't cope with discontinuities may crash.

 

Now let's see what happens if I try to use two DVB devices simultaneously in TransEdit:

 

Analyzing a DVB-S2 transponder with the SkyStar S2, SR = 22000, FEC = 2/3, data rate = 42.5 mbps). No discontinuities. Additionally a full Astra 19° East scan. TransEdit grabs the Nova S2 HD for it (connected to a different dish). Immediately lots of discontinuities from the SkyStar S2. Same with a simultaneous DVB-T scan (TerraTec XE USB). However, in both cases no discontinuities if the Analyzer resp. the SkyStar S2 is tuned to a DVB-S transponder (SR = 27500, FEC = 3/4, data rate = 38 mbps).

 

Conclusion: If the SkyStar S2 is working close to its bandwidth limits (in "whole transponder" mode), discontinuities are likely to occur if other devices are occupying ressources.

 

Now something about a unique characteristic of the SkyStar S2, provided by no other DVB-S2 device:

 

You may configure a channel/transponder as DVB-S or DVB-S2 in DVBViewer/TransEdit. Doesn't matter. The SkyStar S2 doesn't care. It will receive it anyway. Additionally it doesn't care about special transponder parameters like modulation or pilot symbols which have to be set correctly for the Hauppauge Nova S2 HD in DVB-S2 mode. Obviously the SkyStar S2 is able to detect them automatically. In contrast to the Nova S2 HD in DVB-S2 mode the SkyStar S2 accepts FEC set to "Auto" (but not a wrong FEC!). However, it doesn't perform auto symbolrate detection (like the old SkyStar2 rev 2.3), which would be perfect for a blind scan.

 

This behaviour disburdens users from having to deal with these parameters. They don't have to know if a new channel / transponder is DVB-S or DVB-S2 when entering the data. On the other side: If you get results from a blind scan performed with the SkyStar S2, there are no means to determine the modulation system (DVB-S/S2) of a detected transponder. And channel / transponder lists provided by SkyStar S2 users probably won't be suitable for owners of other cards, because important transponder parameters may unwittingly be missing resp. wrong.

 

To be continued...

[Andrey123456]

Similar in DVBViewer GE (where "Open whole transponder" is switched off = HW PID filtering switched on): Sometimes switching over to a channel on a different transponder initially causes two or three discontinuities. Maybe due to DiSEqC, because after setting DiSEqC to "None" it doesn't seem to happen anymore. The SkyStar 2 is known to "interrupt" other cards when sending DiSEqC commands, and the SkyStar S2 even seems to disturb itself.

 

No desaster, but not good. Decoders or other components that can't cope with discontinuities may crash.

 

I saw the same. When connected to loop output of dreambox through DC filter no such problem.

 

Conclusion: If the SkyStar S2 is working close to its bandwidth limits (in "whole transponder" mode), discontinuities are likely to occur if other devices are occupying ressources.

 

What can solve the problem? (without overclocking) Setting card priority to highest, increasing PCI Latency up to 255, reassigning IRQ number does not help. As well as changinng motherboard. Still on DVB-S 22000 2/3 5 discontinuities/hour 27500 3/4 10 discontinuities an hour measuring period minimum 4 hours. How long was measuring period in your test?

[GrafKoks]

Does it mean that not stable work at 27Mbits/s is a reason for RMA?

 

Just use the NDIS driver and everything is OK - that´s it

[Griga]

What can solve the problem?

Implementation of HW PID filtering in the BDA driver. It could support resp. expose the following "official" BDA interface:

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms807096.aspx

[Andrey123456]

What about receiving HD channels? This was the reason why I asked a question about 16 mbits/s data rate. If someone has a dish receiving signals from 9E can you check transponders 11804V 11747H 11804V 11881V 11919V 12054H? There are FTA HD channels. I want to be sure that there is stable reception of filtered stream at HD datarate. Przemek211 says that he has a problem with HD. It's very hard to undersatnd what is his problem, so I want someone more experienced to make a test. Tune a channel, View -> Filters -> DVBsource. Wait 4 hours and watch number of discontinuities.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Andrey123456

[Andrey123456]

New driver 4.5.1 was released by technisat.

[Andrey123456]

Question about transedit:

 

I have a dish which is set to 13E. Thre are some S2 transponders with HD content. My Skystar S2 locks all of them. I want to select only one program of transponder and check discontinuity in this mode. I read the manual, but I would prefer step by step instructions.